Stuff

This morning’s YouGov/Sun daily polling results are here. Topline figures are CON 33%, LAB 38%, LDEM 10%, UKIP 13%. Two noteworthy things in the regular trackers – one, the gap between the people blaming the government for the cuts (29%) and the people blaming Labour (33%) is the lowest YouGov have had so far. Two, people appear to be getting less worried, the 63% of people who say they worry about having enough money to live on is the lowest they’ve shown since the election, so is the 53% who worry about losing their job or having difficulty finding work. Both are presumably a sign of economic optimism continuing to creep slowly upwards.

590 Responses to “YouGov/Sun – CON 33, LAB 38, LD 10, UKIP 13”

I think we can both agree that the opinion which matters is that of the Ukrainian Government & people.
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But the Ukranian Government has been removed without an election & an unelected temporary government has installed itself. And I do not think that the Ukrainian people have one mind on this so it would be their opinions rather than opinion.

Also, I have never seen a vote of the ‘receiving’ people taken before the US, European nations etc. get involved. We must rely on the US, UK, German, French etc. populations to make known our opinion regarding any potential intervention by our Governments.

Looks like we could do with the Populus poll before some people here have to get treatment for email damage. I never cross with Amber; it only ends in tears, mine. (Mind you, in my case they are of laughter).

Might l suggest we wait for some polling then? On Ukraine that is?Sometimes people have to show they are interested before a polling question will be asked.
Otherwise , Colin will succeed in painting you into a pro Putin corner. I do not mind being pushed into a corner. It says more about the pusher than it does about me. But I thank you for you concern, it is genuinely appreciated.

The recent death of Shirley Temple revived G. Greene’s famous ’37 review of her films, pointing out, almost for the first time, the sexualisation of children for adult-male enjoyment.

Eg., “in Wee Willie Winkie, wearing short kilts, she is completely totsy. . . . hear the gasp of excited expectation from her antique audience when she measures a man with agile studio eyes, with dimpled depravity. Adult emotions of love and grief glissade across the mask of childhood.” etc.

Tho he does appear to blame the child rather than the men who manipulated the images.

We may see legitimacy tested soon. The Kiev administration has gone to UN over the Russian intervention.

Clearly you are correct about the absence of “one mind” in Ukraine. The historic cultural & ethnic divisions & the Soviet era construction of this “country” seem about to cause the strife which most people feared.

On the DM campaign against HH and others, I fully agree with Colin it’s all preaching to the converted and won’t impact VI. On the other hand, what might impact the DM’s ability in the future to influence opinion, is that the collateral damage of their onslaught appears to have landed on them. Exposing to those who don’t spend time on Mail Online the sexual exploitation of young girls they engage in today, not 40 years ago. I was a bit surprised that nobody on QT last night demanded that Melanie Philips apologise for that, to make a point, but like Amber I don’t think we should engage in a witch hunt and demand all those who support or work for the DM to apologise for Dacre’s editorial decisions. An apology from him would suffice. On the plus side, I imagine it will be a little while at least before they next publish bikini shots of young girls posing provocatively and looking “beyond their years”.

Oh my, I loved the 70s. I was at London University – Bedford College which was in Regent’s Park. We had sit ins, love ins , demos- you name it, we had it.

And what about those hot summers?
I can remember sitting in the shade drinking Pimms and watching tennis on our grass courts.
Those were the days.
Not sure what its got to do with polling but there you go.
I suppose you could call it memories of a baby boomer.

I loathed the 70’s for the reasons I gave earlier but personally they were good for me. Having started as a junior chemist in 1962 I became a production director in 1971 and enjoyed my battles with the Trade Unions in subsequent years, despite the power the Unions had then. I was also able to afford to send my daughters to private school which proved good for their development.

The Kiev administration has gone to UN over the Russian intervention.
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The UN may be forced to reply that there has not been a Russian intervention. The alternative version is that there is a people’s militia in Crimea protecting the region from a coup which has invalidated the present government in Kiev.

Would regions of the UK do the same, were David Cameron & his cabinet forced from office by protestors in London? I hope we would push back against such a ‘coup’ happening whether we like the current government or not.

@ AlexF
“On the plus side, I imagine it will be a little while at least before they next publish bikini shots of young girls posing provocatively and looking “beyond their years”.

Yes public debates can take unexpected turns & this one publicises something the anti-Harmonites are intellectually incapable of facing: the fact that the tabloids’ sexualisation of kids/young females has a more baleful effect on sexual behaviour than whatever it is that Harman is supposed to have done.

COLIN
“The historic cultural & ethnic divisions & the Soviet era construction of this “country” seem about to cause the strife which most people feared.”
First to the facts as at present reported: armed troops in unmarked uniforms have occupied the control towers of the Simferopol civil airport and of the Sevastopol military airports in the Crimea, which otherwise are operating normally. There is no evidence that they are or have the capbility fo,r or intent to, control air movements or normal use of the airports.
One minister in the Ukraine government has declared that this in a Russian occupation, but this and other statements by individual politicians are part of the “rhetoric” according to the phraseology used by the BBC. The reality probably is that these are Russian troops intentially kept out of uniform to permit denial or even avoidance of the appearance of a sanctioned Russian intervention. Instead it is a holding operation, which would permit Russian intervention (a) in defense of the Russian population which are the majority in the East of the country in case they are threatened by poorly contrrolled incursion from the west, and (b) in case
negotiations or a peaceful settlement break down.
The Russian government’s participation in talks on IMF and EU financial support for the Ukraine in a situation of economic and financial collapse indicates that Russia prefers the status quo, in which the association of the Ukraine with or accession to the EU (for which the EC has worked for the past 25 years under the TACIS programme) remains a possibility.
Putin will, I think, be weighing up the relative advantages maintaining the position of Ukraine as a bridge to the EU markets and the alternative of the secession of the East to create an independent state with political and economic ties to the Russian Federation. Both possibilities would suggest that Russia will use its influence to avoid civil, and certainly wider, conflict, but will provide what is virtually a policing operation, to keep some measure of control in the East.

COLIN
“I will rely on my own interpretation of such reports as are available thanks”

My post was not intended to be polemical. In what respects did you think I was interpreting rather than stating the reported facts?
If your interpretation is that there is about to be a civil war in thew Ukraine and that the Russin government or army will take part in it, state your evidence.

From your last post you could not have been alive in the 70s as Colin and I were. I could not disagree with you more, the so called sexual revolution of the 60s and 70s whilst doing some good for some minorities like homosexuals also did enormous harm as seen in the decline of the family in society.

“As to “the facts”-I will rely on my own interpretation of such reports as are available thanks.”

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That’s a given. It’s also a given that folk can post for others to read, even if you are not interested. If you only wish to read your own posts, you are free to do that too, though it’s a bit pointless…

I see no point in swapping interpretations of news reports on an event which is changing hourly.
Let us hope that the aspirations of the ordinary people of Ukraine can all be realised without any more bloodshed than has already occurred in Kiev.

BBC now reporting Russian helicopters involved in Crimea.
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Russian helicopters have always been in the Ukraine because:
1. The Ukrainian army uses Russian helicopters; &
2. There is a Russian army base there.

It appears that the discussion on the Ukraine is starting to become a right left discussion which surprises me.

@Colin to TOH

Thanks-yes it does me too.

I think the surprise is you think it’s becoming a right left discussion. As an outside observer it looks to me to be a discussion between Colin / TOH, who have a startling level of faith in their own judgement and interpretation, and everybody else, who believe its a complicated and confusing situation and are sceptical of simplistic interpretations.

AW – I had a lecture on Public Administration earlier in which we were discussing the structure and history of the European Union. Our lecturer used this very site’s election guide to show off the lists. Be proud – you’re temporarily famous amongst bored, sleepy* Sheffield students!

*I wasn’t sleepy ’cause I actually care about this stuff, but I’m very much in the minority.

As illustration of the point I just made, last night the vast majority of UK people who have heard of Ukraine were more interested in whether Spurs could overcome a nasty two goal deficit against Dnipro, which I learned is a suburb of Kiev, including an away goal.